The 11 best things at the 2015 15m/Std Class Nationals at Harris Hill

On Tuesday, August 11, 2015 at 6:46:13 PM UTC-7, Sean Fidler wrote:

That said, I think the time has come to start moving the "dials" a bit more (than has been happening recently with the RC) and then assess the actual behaviors that result (rather than trying to debate what we "think" will happen). If, for example we decided to institute the start gate time limit (thirty minutes or one hour, whatever), would it really be that big of a deal? Maybe it would solve some of the problems.

RC is pretty flexible - and welcomes innovations. Waivers are not unreasonably denied. Happens every year multiple times. Feel free to try things. You might have to score by hand as we don't have unlimited capacity to change the scoring programs. Getting something as simple as a last start time implemented - like it or not - takes thought and effort to implement. Ron Gleason and I spent a couple of hours going through all the implications of how to pick a start time (and especially a start location) if a pilot starts after the gate close time - assuming you don't just DQ them. Were they headed towards vs away from the first turn, inside vs outside the cylinder when time ran out? We finally concluded you couldn't score it by hand. Many people spend their precious and limited vacation time on attending a contest, so they kind of deserve to have someone dedicate more than the time it takes to type up an idea to thinking about how (and whether) it would actually work.

Here is a thought. Why is this below max altitude so short (2 min)? Especially considering that start gates open for an UNLIMITED period of time! Have we considered, for example, a 10 minute below max altitude? Imagine how that would change the game. Or how about you have to go 500 feet below max altitude to reset? 1000 ft? At current, one can quickly spiral down from above the limit and keep a lot of energy going in that 2 minutes. Especially if the thermal is wide, strong and well marked by other competitors.. Of course this is highly dangerous. I think the problem is that 2 min is really not long enough to settle everyone down. In other common scenarios, one can keep going up, then changing your mind, going down, waiting 2 min, etc, etc, etc. With only 2 min...one can see others leave (make an obvious start) and then quickly descend, wait 2 min, climb back up and start and only be 3-4 minutes behind the "target." An almost perfect leech (draft) up position.

Generally you're better off staying below MSH than doing all of that. The 2 minute rule is intended to be the minimum time that discourages pilots trying to dive at redline into the top of the cylinder. The problem with a altitude differential is that it innocence redline dives and pull-ups. With a time limit, even at redline you'd bleed off all your energy after 2 minutes so there's not much of a point. As to extending it, anyone who has popped through the top by accident knows the frustration of waiting even 2 minutes.. There would need to be a big benefit unrelated to its current purpose to make it worthwhile to extend it. Maybe I'm missing something but I don't see why you'd do that. If we could get reliable IAS data, we'd simply implement a speed limit, but GPS logs are TAS plus wind drift so it's a recipe for protest if you ding somebody for overspeed. Even so, bombing around in the cylinder can get you an unsafe flying penalty - though most CDs are loathe to do it. If it gets egregious sanctions can happen (and has happened) so please behave!

I really don't think glider contests are like software DevOps where you just try a bunch of stuff to see what works in the marketplace. It's more like traffic laws - people get upset if you monkey around with it too much without some due process.

Keep the ideas coming and keep complaining about what you don't like. Everybody wants to make contests more fair and more enjoyable for more people.

9B